Representation and videography in linguistic landscape studies

Abstract

Much Linguistic Landscape scholarship relies on visual data collection, primarily the use of still photography; however, the field has yet to address the theoretical underpinning of such visual and spatial representation. Furthermore, digital video is currently as easy to capture and share as digital photographs were when Linguistic Landscape studies first became prominent in the early 2000s. With these two points in mind, this article first grounds the documentation and analysis of the Linguistic Landscape in a theory of visual representation; it then provides a framework for videographic methodologies drawing on recent work in the related fields of anthropology and cultural geography. An example study utilizing non-participatory videography is summarized in which digital video recordings were used to capture and convey the Linguistic Landscape.